Determinants of knowledge sharing of e-learners

This paper is intended to identify the determinants of knowledge sharing of e-learners and their behavioural differences during the same process under demographical characteristics. Qualitative and open-ended responses to questions were collected from 29 e-learners. Content analysis of those open-ended responses showed that there are 215 themes. And we condense these themes into four dimensions: senders' factors, receivers' factors, context factors and characteristics of knowledge. Some key factors founded by this research, which indeed influence the knowledge sharing behaviour, are stated as follows: senders' factors: personality, emotion, capability; receivers' factor: dislike, attitude, personality; context factors: competitive situation, time pressure, contribution; characteristics of knowledge: "private or secret", "interesting or issues", "valuable". This unique analyses framework and valuable findings of our present research offer a good beginning for advanced investigation of the knowledge sharing, one of the most important issues in the digital era.